Facebook will soon demote posts that beg for likes, comments, and shares

Starting this week, Facebook will begin demoting spammy or “engagement bait” posts that goad users into taking actions like sharing, tagging, liking, or commenting. Posts which prompt users to “Tag a friend who likes to nap!” seem popular because they game Facebook’s algorithms, which causes Facebook to prioritize those posts in more News Feeds. The company says posts that ask people for help, advice, or recommendations like raising money for charity or asking for travel advice won’t be affected by the update.

Facebook reviewed and categorized hundreds of thousands of posts and taught a machine learning model to detect the different types of engagement bait. The company says it will implement stricter demotions for Pages that repeatedly…